Mark E. Laxer

“ I wondered if there were a genuine need in humans not only to categorize and comprehend, but to acknowledge and to address, in unscientific terms, the mystery of that which creates, binds, animates, and destroys. And I wondered if teachers like Atmananda were increasingly exploiting such a need in millions who, for whatever reasons, had chosen a path apart from conventional religion. Perhaps by nurturing both mystical and rational inclinations, society could explore the realm beyond the surface world of reason while keeping pace with the charismatic predators of the New Age. ”

“ Besides, I sensed that without Atmananda as a buffer, Chinmoy's highly regimented brand of spirituality would be difficult, if not impossible, for me to conform to.
And what a buffer Atmananda was! I pictured him striding about with his chin jutting forward, exuding that aura of confidence; joking and singing, inspiring and enlivening us; challenging our intellects with the known and unknowable; framing and reframing the way in which we viewed the world; and generating mystical experiences—not on his own, of course, but with the Guru's Spiritual Light. ”

“ Late one night, Atmananda met three hundred disciples in a parking lot in the desert ninety miles east of San Diego. He led us for hours over soft, cooling sand to a spot in a dry river bed. He had us form a circle around him. As we scanned for scorpions before sitting down, the desert floor lit up like a circular, gyrating constellation, until one by one the flashlights went out and it grew difficult again to see.
"If you enter a higher level of consciousness," Atmananda began from the center of the circle, "you will see the Warriors on the cliffs across the gorge. ”

“ I had never heard Atmananda criticize his—our—beloved Guru. Still, I had to admit that his intuition was usually correct.
"When I tried meditating without the Transcendental," he continued, "my consciousness suddenly jumped to a much higher level—as if the Guru had been holding me down. And yet my logical mind still refused to accept that the Guru had fallen. You see, you don't just turn your back on someone you have devoted eleven years of your life to, someone you have loved more than anyone else in the universe." ”

“ I began to think not about McMurphy and Atmananda's similarities, but about their differences. I recalled Atmananda saying, "When you attain my level of enlightenment, you transcend good and evil. 'Good' and 'evil' become mere words, mere concepts in a universe where only experience matters. So why be attached to the good side of the force?"
I wanted to believe that Atmananda meant: "Why worry about being good if you become goodness itself?" ”

“ I looked at the Transcendental and wondered if the Guru, who looked like he badly needed sleep, could make something in me *click*.
Atmananda turned toward me, as if in response to my newest doubt, and said, "An enlightened teacher can take a person through thousands of lives in just one lifetime."
"What's the rush?" I thought.
"The sooner you attain enlightenment, the sooner you can help others transcend this world of pain and suffering." ”

“ I realized, "are part of the Earth. The Earth is sacred." I did not realize, as I continued to astonish myself with my own profundity, that I had finally entered a world similar to the ones described in the Castaneda books.
Suddenly Rama raised his arms and made a whistling sound. The disciples looked at him as if he were a god. I felt detached from the scene, as if I were observing myself observe the disciples observe the man acting like a sorcerer. ”

“ But it was far more painful to examine what it was about me that had complemented his techniques and allowed me to accept his authority. I thought about how, as a thirteen-year-old, it had been easier to journey into lives of sorcerers from the Castaneda books than it was to deal with the emotions of a family in conflict; years later, it was easier to follow Atmananda's narcotic program than it was to brave a suppressed conflict of my own. I also realized that I had grown up feeling blessed, immortal, and immune to the dangers of the world ”

“ Since the coup, Atmananda had stepped up his effort to instill fear in his followers. He taught me, for instance, to fear the Negative Forces which he said were destroying the fabric of society. "Just read the papers," he would say. "You'll see what I'm talking about."
He taught me to fear what would happen if I left the Centre. "You know too much to leave. It's a greedy, materialistic world out there. Your soul would be miserable. Besides, the Forces would flatten you like a bug. You would lose thousands of lifetimes of evolution." ”

“ I had been taught that samadhi was a state of consciousness so exalted that precious few enlightened souls achieved it. But now I was dizzy and nauseous from hunger. I was having difficulty concentrating. I saw swirling dots before me whether I was meditating or not. I found myself realizing that Atmananda had studied meditation in past lives. I found myself realizing that he was an advanced disciple of the Guru. I found myself feeling bad that I had doubted so advanced a soul, so educated a man, and so close a friend. ”

“ Rama, who usually arrived about forty minutes late, might begin with a discourse on the teachings of Lao Tzu, Castaneda's Don Juan, or Christ. Then, couching parables in modern terms, he might proclaim: "Short is the path of the fast lane on the freeway to enlightenment." Or he might say: "As the coyote tries to catch the road runner, so too tries the seeker to comprehend the life of a fully enlightened teacher through rational means." ”

“ While reading the book I felt proud that Gandhi had been deeply influenced by Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience," proud that a thinker and experimenter from the United States had had an effect on one from India whose thoughts and experiments affected humankind. But it was more than pride which attracted me to Shirer's Gandhi: A Memoir. Gandhi's dream of helping the masses reminded me of Atmananda's seeming interest in making millions of people happy. ”

“ When you are attacked by the Forces, just think of Guru."
I did think of Guru. I often doubted, though, that nefarious, non-physical Entities from beyond the world of reason were getting underneath my skin. I recalled that Don Juan tricked Castaneda into pursuing the path to knowledge, and wondered if Atmananda's explanation was a ploy to maneuver me closer to Guru. But because I sought adventure, challenge, and entrance into the metaphysical worlds of Don Juan, Obi-Wan-Kanobi, Chinmoy and Atmananda, I willfully suspended my disbelief. ”

“ Some of the fifty or so former Chinmoy disciples that I greeted seemed excited, but most, like me, seemed anxious and confused. Twenty minutes after the meeting was scheduled to begin, I closed the door and sat with the group before a barren, Transcendental-less shrine. A nervous tension permeated the room. Atmananda strode in, sat down, and fiddled with his wristwatch. Then he looked up and quickly raised his hand to his mouth—as if he were surprised that he was not alone. A few people laughed.
"There are four paths leading to enlightenment," Atmananda said. ”

“ Be proud that you are taking a stand against the Negative Forces, be absorbed. Don't be so hard on yourselves—give yourselves a break—be absorbed. Learn humility and you will learn the secret to happiness, be absorbed. A desert trip is coming up soon, be absorbed. Forget not that our mission is to spread light in the world, be absorbed. Our friends from past lives will soon be joining us, be absorbed."
Rama asked that we sit up straight. He put on electronic music, slowly scanned the audience, and raised his hands above his head. ”

“ My newfound calm, however, was broken by what Atmananda said at a Centre meeting several days later. He announced that he had recently attained levels of consciousness so powerful and sublime that he was no longer the person that we thought him to be. Each time he dipped into these higher realms of perception, his old self died and a new one emerged, forged in the fires of what he called perfection.
"A number of you have already sensed the change," he said. "I first started entering into these higher states—which I call basement samadhi—during deep meditation. ”

“ Atmananda inundated us with so many details that he appeared to be conducting a lesson, not a coup.
"Another way to tell if someone is your teacher," Atmananda said, turning toward me, "is to see if you have studied with them in a previous life. Several of you have been with me before. Mark, for instance, has studied with me in Tibet, Japan, and India. He doesn't remember very well, but he will. You may have noticed how easy it is to see his aura."
"He's just saying that!" I thought. Yet I had always felt a powerful affinity toward those countries. Several students cast their gaze at me. ”

“ One time I lay in bed thinking about One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, a book Atmananda had recommended to me. At first I thought about the similarities between Atmananda and R. P. McMurphy, the novel's free-spirited protagonist. Both men, I realized, exuded auras of self-confidence. Atmananda, for instance, had once offered to teach me the secret of attracting women. Jutting his chin forward like a boxer's glove, he focused on an imaginary horizon and began taking long and rhythmic strides. ”

“ C'mon people—fess up!"
"Rama, are we focusing on the l.o. [lower occult] again?"
"What do you think?"
"Yes, Rama."
"Look, none of you realize what you are getting yourselves into. Once you open the door to the Negative Entities, it is nearly impossible to get rid of them." He read our expressions and paused, as if to assess the point at which to start building us up again.
"Eternity is all around us at every moment," he said gently, "be absorbed. Nirvana is a world of unlimited ecstasy, be absorbed. Go see the new Schwartzenegger movie, be absorbed. ”

“ Back in New York, I chose to see the world less through the eyes of an eleventh grader taking honors physics and history, and more through the eyes of a sorcerer's apprentice. I incorporated into my daily routine Don Juan's recommendations. As an exercise in humility, I spoke aloud to plants. To *see* beyond society's description of reality, I tried to stop my thoughts. To expand my awareness beyond the confines of the waking state, I sought to wake within a dream. ”

“ But then I thought about how, unlike McMurphy, Atmananda increasingly blamed others for the role he chose to play. "I incarnated into this world of pain and suffering," Atmananda often claimed, "to help my students from past lives. Many of you don't seem to realize it, but I am in a constant state of pain as a result of the bad energy that you continuously bombard me with. I am also constantly ill as a result of the massive amounts of bad karma that I absorb from you on a regular basis." ”

“ When the disciples began to treat me with a mellow kind of reverence—a phenomenon local, perhaps, to southern California—I was thrilled. I had an intuitive grasp on how to wield the ad hoc power, but I did not grasp that it was the power which was actually wielding me.
Meanwhile, Atmananda had added "money collector" to the growing list of my responsibilities. This task, he cautioned, was not without its dangers. "Money is physically dirty," he said, as though telling me a secret. "It also retains and transmits the greed of its handlers. Always wash your hands after you touch it." ”

“ I suggest a day in the desert alone, a good movie, or a powerful occult experience. You see, Sproutarina, God loves you no matter what you do. If you want the vital, you can have it, and if you want the psychic you can have that too. But you can't have both, at least not in our Centre. Decide which will really fulfill you and choose that one. Only you can decide what you want in this lifetime."
Rama—who preferred the term "having sex" to "making love"—occasionally softened his position on sexuality and invited followers to relax, accept their human nature, and do whatever worked for them. ”

“ And while disciples gave generously when Rama took up a collection, no one could have replaced my birthday gift from Rama. I found it lying on the scorched foundation, reduced from a sleek, red bicycle to a meteor-like lump of distorted alloys.
But of all the sketches I could have written for The Last Incarnation, perhaps the most telling would have been the story of "Rama and the Enlightenment of Women." "Certainly we welcome men into our organization," Rama often announced. "But our primary focus is on the enlightenment of women." ”

“ I later looked to Gandhi and to William Shirer for answers. But as I rode west from Concord, Massachusetts, I found a teacher inside myself, and the lessons worked for me.
I learned that it is important not to follow someone blindly, even if he is truly childlike, humble, self-giving, and "Self-Realized"; even if he is a friend; and particularly if he is reluctant to openly admit that he can be seduced by his power over others. Genuine teachers encourage their students to question them throughout the *entire* apprenticeship, because genuine teachers accept their own imperfect human nature. ”

“ Anne asked me as we washed the breakfast dishes.
"Something is definitely not right," I replied. We glanced at each other, but found it difficult to share our ideas and doubts in much depth. We both felt indebted to Atmananda. He had managed to convince us, separately, that had we not met him, we would now be dead. He used this tactic on many disciples. He had also been giving Anne and me special attention lately, and we therefore felt particularly guilty that we had doubts about him. ”

“ Tricking is necessary because people, left to their own devices, are inherently lazy and would avoid their higher destiny."
Remembering how Don Juan hooked Castaneda, I figured that being hooked and tricked into a higher destiny was probably okay—as long as everything turned out all right. It was deeply ingrained in me to believe that things tended to turn out all right.
"It is essential that you learn spiritual etiquette," Atmananda said. "Do not hang pictures of me. Do not worship me. Do not treat me like a guru. I am a teacher, a spiritual benefactor. ”